The total number of lawyers in the United States has seen a steady increase over the last few years. In 2024, there were approximately **** million active lawyers. This total was slightly lower when compared to the previous year, and not much above the 2015 figure of *** million. Lawyers in the U.S. Unlike many other common law countries, the United States does not differentiate between lawyers who plead in court and those who do not. For example, in the United Kingdom the former are titled barristers and the latter solicitors. In the United States, however, terms such as lawyer and attorney can refer to either profession. Oversupply in the U.S. legal industry Despite continuous growth of the U.S. legal services market since the great recession, there is an oversupply of lawyers relative to the number of jobs. An overproduction of law graduates is one cause of this oversupply; consequently the number of law graduates shrunk in recent years. Increasing automation is another cause, with around half of law firms admitting to replacing human resources with technology in the last two years.

In 2024, there were approximately 463,600 law firms in the United States. Between 2020 and 2025, the number of law firms grew by approximately 1.8 percent per year on average.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Law Firms industry in the US

As of 2021, the law firm with the highest number of lawyers in the United States (U.S) was Kirkland & Ellis, with *****. Latham & Waktins and Morgan, Lewis followed, with ***** and ***** lawyers employed in the United States respectively.

In 2023, the state with the highest number of lawyers in the United States was California, with a figure of approximately ******. In the same year, roughly ****** lawyers were employed in the state of New York.

The graph displays the number of law firms operating in the United States from 2006 to 2025. The x-axis represents the years, starting at 2006 and ending at 2025, while the y-axis shows the total number of registered law firm businesses each year. The number of firms ranges from a low of 401,100 in 2008 to a high of 463,590 in 2025. Despite minor dips in some years, such as 2008 and 2022, the overall trend shows steady growth in the legal industry over the two-decade span. The data highlights a resilient and expanding market for legal services in the U.S.

In 2023, approximately 40 percent of lawyers in the United States were women. In 2022, the state with the highest employment in that occupation was California, followed by New York and Florida.

How has the number of lawyers in the U.S. changed over time?

Between 2007 and 2022, there was an overall increase in the number of practicing lawyers in the United States. In 2022, the number of lawyers in the United States was up almost ten percent from what it had been a decade ago. Conversely, the number of law school graduates has steadily declined since 2013. This suggests that although the demand for lawyers has continued to grow in the United States, there have been fewer graduates being produced by law schools in the country.

The U.S. legal services market

The largest segment of the U.S. legal services market in 2022 was spending on outside legal counsel. This segment contributed significantly more to the market than corporate legal departments for companies with over one billion U.S. dollars in revenue. In 2017, the United States held almost half of the global legal market.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Corporate Law Firms industry in United States

The 2014 Survey of State Attorneys General (SAG) collected information on jurisdiction, sources and circumstances of case referrals, and the participation of attorneys general offices in federal or state white-collar crime task forces in 2014. White-collar crime was defined by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) as: "any violation of law committed through non-violent means, involving lies, omissions, deceit, misrepresentation, or violation of a position of trust, by an individual or organization for personal or organizational benefit." SAG sought to analyze how attorneys general offices as an organization in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories respond to white-collar offenses in their jurisdiction. BJS asked respondents to focus on the following criminal and civil offenses: bank fraud, consumer fraud, insurance fraud, medical fraud, securities fraud, tax fraud, environmental offenses, false claims and statements, illegal payments to governmental officials (giving or receiving), unfair trade practices, and workplace-related offenses (e.g., unsafe working conditions). Variables included whether or not offices handled criminal or civil cases in the above categories, estimated number of cases in each category, and what types of criminal or civil sanctions were imposed on white-collar offenders. Researchers also assessed collaboration with partners outside of state attorneys offices, whether cases were referred for federal or local prosecution, and what circumstances lead to referring cases to state regulatory agencies. The extent to which state attorneys offices maintain white-collar crime data was also recorded.

UniCourt provides legal data on law firms that’s been normalized by our AI and enriched with other public data sets to connect real-world law firms to their attorneys and clients, judges they’ve faced and types of litigation they’ve handled across practice areas and state and federal (PACER) courts.

AI Normalized Law Firms

• UniCourt’s AI locates and gathers variations of law firm names and spelling errors contained in court data and combines them with bar data, business data, and judge data to connect real-world law firms to their litigation. • Avoid bad data caused by frequent law firm name changes due to firm mergers, named partners leaving, and firms dissolving, leading to lost business and bad analytics. • UniCourt’s unique normalized IDs for law firms let you quickly search for and download all of the litigation involving the specific firms you’re interested in. • Uncover the associations and relationships between law firms, their lawyers, their clients, judges, and their top practice areas across different jurisdictions.

Using APIs to Dig Deeper

• See a full list of all of the businesses and individuals a law firm has represented as clients in litigation. • Easily vet the bench strength of law firms by looking at the volume and specific types of cases their lawyers have handled. • Drill down into a law firm’s experience to confirm which judges they’ve appeared before in court. • Identify which law firms and lawyers a particular firm has faced as opposing counsel, and the judgments they obtained.

Bulk Access to Law Firm Data

• UniCourt’s Law Firm Data API provides you with structured, cleaned, and organized legal data that you can easily connect to your case management systems, CRM, and other internal applications. • Get bulk access to law firm Secretary of State registration data and the names, emails, phone numbers, and physical addresses for all of a firm’s lawyers. • Use our APIs to create tailored legal marketing campaigns for law firms and their attorneys with the exact practice area expertise and the right geographic coverage you want to target. • Power your case research, business intelligence, and analytics with bulk access to litigation data for all the court cases a firm has handled and set up automated data feeds to find new cases they’re involved in.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Personal Injury Lawyers & Attorneys industry in the US

This statistic shows the number of law firms in the legal services market in the United States in 2018, broken down by enterprise size. In that year, around 205 law firms in the United States had more than 500 employees.

Number of Businesses statistics on the Immigration Lawyers & Attorneys industry in the US

Number of Businesses statistics on the Business Lawyers & Attorneys industry in United States

This dataset is about book subjects. It has 1 row and is filtered where the book subject is Lawyers-United States-Biography. It features 6 columns including number of authors, number of books, earliest publication date, and latest publication date.

Graph and download economic data for Gross Domestic Product: Legal Services (5411) in the United States (USLEGALNGSP) from 1997 to 2023 about legal, science, professional, GSP, private industries, business, services, private, industry, GDP, and USA.

Comprehensive dataset of 23,802 Divorce lawyers in United States as of June, 2025. Includes verified contact information (email, phone), geocoded addresses, customer ratings, reviews, business categories, and operational details. Perfect for market research, lead generation, competitive analysis, and business intelligence. Download a complimentary sample to evaluate data quality and completeness.

Graph and download economic data for Total Revenue for Offices of Lawyers, Establishments Subject to Federal Income Tax, Employer Firms (REVEF54111TAXABL) from 1998 to 2022 about legal, employer firms, accounting, revenue, establishments, tax, services, and USA.

This dataset provides information on 56 in Colorado, United States as of June, 2025. It includes details such as email addresses (where publicly available), phone numbers (where publicly available), and geocoded addresses. Explore market trends, identify potential business partners, and gain valuable insights into the industry. Download a complimentary sample of 10 records to see what's included.

The total number of lawyers working at the leading 100 law firms in the United States (U.S.) increased steadily between 2015 and 2020. In 2020, there was a combined total of 105,718 lawyers working at the 100 highest grossing U.S. law firms.